• Hello, please take a minute to check out our awesome content, contributed by the wonderful members of our community. We hope you'll add your own thoughts and opinions by making a free account!

Wintry 1/26-1/28 Winter Storm Potential

I see many Mets that have sunny and clear on monday/Tuesday for eastern NC and only a 0-10% percent chance of precip, not good
 
RGEM at 500 was slightly worse w/ the vort max scooting along a little more quickly through the northern Gulf & Florida and thus the precip shield is more suppressed overall

This is going to be one of those storms where the degree of energy interaction and how quickly it can go negative will determine what happens... and usually when it’s this close a tiny change aloft can make a huge difference. I don’t think any one model is going to accurately handle such a critical detail accurately enough for us to really know...
 
This is going to be one of those storms where the degree of energy interaction and how quickly it can go negative will determine what happens... and usually when it’s this close a tiny change aloft can make a huge difference. I don’t think any one model is going to accurately handle such a critical detail accurately enough for us to really know...

There's also a very significant diabatic contribution from convection associated with the warm conveyor belt of the storm that'll tune the degree and rate of tilting w/ the parent s/w trough as it approaches and crosses the Florida peninsula in addition to contributing to the evolution of the surface low as pressures fall underneath the deep mass of convection. It's a game of inches for the I-95 & US HWY 1 corridors, I personally like where you & especially metwannabe stand atm vs Raleigh but I still believe there's a good chance significant precipitation makes it to the US 1 corridor in the end but we'll see.
 
With these 250 mb jet streaks, y'all are saying that the stronger and further west they come, the more likely that precipitation will hit the ground. I know that there is more to it than the Jet streak, and that models sometimes have a hard time coupling things higher in the atmosphere to the surface, so what would be a good rule of thumb for taking a guess at where precip will fall if you look at the jet streaks, and some of the other variables?
 
If state can go on an 8-0 run in the last 19 seconds for a win i can get snow here

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Y’all have a better chance of beating Duke, than getting snow!
 
There's also a very significant diabatic contribution from convection associated with the warm conveyor belt of the storm that'll tune the degree and rate of tilting w/ the parent s/w trough as it approaches and crosses the Florida peninsula in addition to contributing to the evolution of the surface low as pressures fall underneath the deep mass of convection. It's a game of inches for the I-95 & US HWY 1 corridors, I personally like where you & especially metwannabe stand atm vs Raleigh but I still believe there's a good chance significant precipitation makes it to the US 1 corridor in the end but we'll see.
How about Coastal SC could we see any wintry wx?
 
upper levels would relatively seem supportive but all the guidance are running quite warm at the SFC. under sufficient rates it's possible but I tell you for certain guidance verbatim at the SFC is wayyyyy too warm
Same can be said about Upstate SC! The cold air always 12 hours behind with the cold air getting over the mountains!! I don’t care what kind of arctic air is coming!?
 
How about Coastal SC could we see any wintry wx?

Ditto w/ stormfury, I think the boundary layer is going to be way too warm in coastal sections of SC to see anything even in a best case scenario.

The area I'd hone in on to get accumulating snow if anyone sees it is the central-western coastal plain and eastern piedmont in the northern half of NC plus southeastern VA including areas like Rocky Mount-Wilson, Raleigh-Durham, Roanoke Rapids, Norfolk, VA, Greenville (?), Elizabeth City (?), etc.
 
Last edited:
While the surface-derived products like precipitation haven't responded yet, the Fv3 is still headed in the direction that favors continued NW adjustments and a stronger surface low downstream with more s/w interaction & a more amped wave early in the run. If this were to continue and propagate forward in the run we could see significant changes appear somewhere down the line but we'll see.

fv3p_z500_vort_us_fh18_trend.gif
 
Why do these short-term trends in s/w amplitude matter? If you were for example to look at the difference between the old GFS & Fv3 by 12z on Monday it's easy to see why the Fv3 looks better at the surface, the s/w amplifies more quickly earlier on in the run and is closer to forming a cut-off upper level vortex while the GFS is strung out (as usual). I'd lean towards the more western fv3 camp here given how we're still trending in the short-term plus canonical biases in stringing out and dampening waves by the GFS. If our s/w becomes even more intense as it has run after run on models like the fv3 near verification we may have room for further NW adjustments.

fv3p_z500_vort_us_8.png

gfs_z500_vort_us_8.png
 
If I remember correctly, the NAM did fairly well with last year's January 3 winter storm for coastal areas. I still think snow accumulation is unlikely west of I-95 but the NAM and RGEM shows that it's not over for regions as far west as RDU yet.
 
Back
Top